The Missioner E-Book

E. Phillips Oppenheim

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Lady Wilhemina Thorpe-Hatton lives a life of extraordinary wealth and privilege. She is visiting her extensive estate in England, which includes the town of Thorpe, and all it’s inhabitants. When Victor Macheson, a young man chock full of ideals and theories about how to make the world a better place, petitions her for the use of a barn where he can speak on these subjects, she refuses. He is dismissed and harried out of town by the son of the estate manager Stephan Hurd. But he proves to be a stubborn sort. The estate manager is murdered by a mysterious stranger, and Lady Thorpe finds herself in the throws of a disturbing emotion... love. But why is Wilhelmina so incomprehensible, so affectionate and then so distant? And will Macheson’s ideals and high thinking stand the test of such treatment by her?

Leseprobe

Contents

BOOK I

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

BOOK II

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

BOOK I

I. MISTRESS AND AGENT

The lady of Thorpe was bored. These details as to leases and repairs were wearisome. The phrases and verbiage confused her. She felt obliged to take them in some measure for granted; to accept without question the calmly offered advice of the man who stood so respectfully at the right hand of her chair.

“This agreement with Philip Crooks,” he remarked, “is a somewhat important document. With your permission, madam, I will read it to you.”

She signified her assent, and leaned wearily back in her chair. The agent began to read. His mistress watched him through half closed eyes. His voice, notwithstanding its strong country dialect, had a sort of sing-song intonation. He read earnestly and without removing his eyes from the document. His listener made no attempt to arrive at the sense of the string of words which flowed so monotonously from his lips. She was occupied in making a study of the man. Sturdy and weather-beaten, neatly dressed in country clothes, with a somewhat old-fashioned stock, with trim grey side-whiskers, and a mouth which reminded her somehow of a well-bred foxhound’s, he represented to her, in his clearly cut personality, the changeless side of life, the side of life which she associated with the mighty oaks in her park, and the prehistoric rocks which had become engrafted with the soil of the hills beyond. As she saw him now, so had he seemed to her fifteen years ago. Only what a difference! A volume to her–a paragraph to him! She had gone out into the world–rich, intellectually inquisitive, possessing most of the subtler gifts with which her sex is endowed; and wherever the passionate current of life had flown the swiftest, she had been there, a leader always, seeking ever to satisfy the unquenchable thirst for new experiences and new joys. She had passed from girlhood to womanhood with every nerve of her body strained to catch the emotion of the moment. Always her fingers had been tearing at the cells of life–and one by one they had fallen away. This morning, in the bright sunshine which flooded the great room, she felt somehow tired–tired and withered. Her maid was a fool! The two hours spent at her toilette had been wasted! She felt that her eyes were hollow, her cheeks pale! Fifteen years, and the man had not changed a jot. She doubted whether he had ever passed the confines of her estate. She doubted whether he had even had the desire. Wind and sun had tanned his cheeks, his eyes were clear, his slight stoop was the stoop of the horseman rather than of age. He had the air of a man satisfied with life and his place in it–an attitude which puzzled her. No one of her world was like that! Was it some inborn gift, she wondered, which he possessed, some antidote to the world’s restlessness which he carried with him, or was it merely lack of intelligence?

He finished reading and folded up the pages, to find her regarding him still with that air of careful attention with which she had listened to his monotonous flow of words. He found her interest surprising. It did not occur to him to invest it with any personal element.

“The agreement upon the whole,” he remarked, “is, I believe, a fair one. You are perhaps thinking that those clauses––”

“If the agreement is satisfactory to you,” she interrupted, “I will confirm it.”

He bowed slightly and glanced through the pile of papers upon the table.

“I do not think that there is anything else with which I need trouble you, madam,” he remarked.

She nodded imperiously.

“Sit down for a moment, Mr. Hurd,” she said.

If he felt any surprise, he did not show it. He drew one of the high-backed chairs away from the table, and with that slight air of deliberation which characterized all his movements, seated himself. He was in no way disquieted to find her dark, tired eyes still studying him.

“How old are you, Mr. Hurd?” she asked.

“I am sixty-three, madam,” he answered.

Her eyebrows were gently raised. To her it seemed incredible. She thought of the men of sixty-three or thereabouts whom she knew, and her lips parted in one of those faint, rare smiles of genuine amusement, which smoothed out all the lines of her tired face. Visions of the promenade at Marienbad and Carlsbad, the Kursaal at Homburg, floated before her. She saw them all, the men whom she knew, with the story of their lives written so plainly in their faces, babbling of nerves and tonics and cures, the newest physician, the latest fad. Defaulters all of them, unwilling to pay the great debt–seeking always a way out! Here, at least, this man scored!

“You enjoy good health?” she remarked.

“I never have anything the matter with me,” he answered simply. “I suppose,” he added, as though by an afterthought, “the life is a healthy one.”

“You find it–satisfying?” she asked.

He seemed puzzled.

“I have never attempted anything else,” he answered. “It seems to be what I am suited for.”

She attempted to abandon the rôle of questioner–to give a more natural turn to the conversation.

“It is always,” she remarked, “such a relief to get down into the country at the end of the season. I wonder I don’t spend more time here. I daresay one could amuse oneself?” she added carelessly.

Mr. Hurd considered for a few moments.

“There are croquet and archery and tennis in the neighbourhood,” he remarked. “The golf course on the Park hills is supposed to be excellent. A great many people come over to play.”

She affected to be considering the question seriously. An intimate friend would not have been deceived by her air of attention. Mr. Hurd knew nothing of this. He, on his part, however, was capable of a little gentle irony.

“It might amuse you,” he remarked, “to make a tour of your estate. There are some of the outlying portions which I think that I should have the honour of showing you for the first time.”

“I might find that interesting,” she admitted. “By the bye, Mr. Hurd, what sort of a landlord am I? Am I easy, or do I exact my last pound of flesh? One likes to know these things.”

“It depends upon the tenant,” the agent answered. “There is not one of your farms upon which, if a man works, he cannot make a living. On the other hand, there is not one of them on which a man can make a living unless he works. It is upon this principle that your rents have been adjusted. The tenants of the home lands have been most carefully chosen, and Thorpe itself is spoken of everywhere as a model village.”

“It is very charming to look at,” its mistress admitted. “The flowers and thatched roofs are so picturesque. ‘Quite a pastoral idyll,’ my guests tell me. The people one sees about seem contented and respectful, too.”

“They should be, madam,” Mr. Hurd answered drily. “The villagers have had a good many privileges from your family for generations.”

The lady inclined her head thoughtfully.

“You think, then,” she remarked, “that if anything should happen in England, like the French Revolution, I should not find unexpected thoughts and discontent smouldering amongst them? You believe that they are really contented?”

Mr. Hurd knew nothing about revolutions, and he was utterly unable to follow the trend of her thoughts.

“If they were not, madam,” he declared, “they would deserve to be in the workhouse–and I should feel it my duty to assist them in getting there.”

The lady of Thorpe laughed softly to herself.

“You, too, then, Mr. Hurd,” she said, “you are content with your life? You don’t mind my being personal, do you? It is such a change down here, such a different existence ... and I like to understand everything.”

Upon Mr. Hurd the almost pathetic significance of those last words was wholly wasted. They were words of a language which he could not comprehend. He realized only their direct application–and the woman to him seemed like a child.

“If I were not content, madam,” he said, “I should deserve to lose my place. I should deserve to lose it,” he added after a moment’s pause, “notwithstanding the fact that I have done my duty faithfully for four and forty years.”

She smiled upon him brilliantly. They were so far apart that she feared lest she might have offended him.

“I have always felt myself a very fortunate woman, Mr. Hurd,” she said, “in having possessed your services.”

He rose as though about to go. It was her whim, however, to detain him.

“You lost your wife some years ago, did you not, Mr. Hurd?” she began tentatively. As a matter of fact, she was not sure of her ground.

“Seven years back, madam,” he answered, with immovable face. “She was, unfortunately, never a strong woman.”

“And your son?” she asked more confidently. “Is he back from South Africa?”

“A year ago, madam,” he answered. “He is engaged at present in the estate office. He knows the work well––”

“The best place for him, of course,” she interrupted. “We ought to do all we can for our young men who went out to the war. I should like to see your son, Mr. Hurd. Will you tell him to come up some day?”

“Certainly, madam,” he answered.

“Perhaps he would like to shoot with my guests on Thursday?” she suggested graciously.

Mr. Hurd did not seem altogether pleased.

“It has never been the custom, madam,” he remarked, “for either my son or myself to be associated with the Thorpe shooting parties.”

“Some customs,” she remarked pleasantly, “are well changed, even in Thorpe. We shall expect him.”

Mr. Hurd’s mouth reminded her for a moment of a steel trap. She could see that he disapproved, but she had no intention of giving way. He began to tie up his papers, and she watched him with some continuance of that wave of interest which he had somehow contrived to excite in her. The signature of one of the letters which he was methodically folding, caught her attention.

“What a strange name!” she remarked. “Victor Macheson! Who is he?”

Mr. Hurd unfolded the letter. The ghost of a smile flickered upon his lips.

“A preacher, apparently,” he answered. “The letter is one asking permission to give a series of what he terms religious lectures in Harrison’s large barn!”

Her eyebrows were gently raised. Her tone was one of genuine surprise.

“What, in Thorpe?” she demanded.

“In Thorpe!” Mr. Hurd acquiesced.

She took the letter and read it. Her perplexity was in no manner diminished.

“The man seems in earnest,” she remarked. “He must either be a stranger to this part of the country, or an extremely impertinent person. I presume, Mr. Hurd, that nothing has been going on in the place with which I am unacquainted?”

“Certainly not, madam,” he answered.

“There has been no drunkenness?” she remarked. “The young people have, I presume, been conducting their love-making discreetly?”

The lines of Mr. Hurd’s mouth were a trifle severe. One could imagine that he found her modern directness of speech indelicate.

“There have been no scandals of any sort connected with the village, madam,” he assured her. “To the best of my belief, all of our people are industrious, sober and pious. They attend church regularly. As you know, we have not a public-house or a dissenting place of worship in the village.”

“The man must be a fool,” she said deliberately. “You did not, of course, give him permission to hold these services?”

“Certainly not,” the agent answered. “I refused it absolutely.”

The lady rose, and Mr. Hurd understood that he was dismissed.

“You will tell your son about Thursday?” she reminded him.

“I will deliver your message, madam,” he answered.

She nodded her farewell as the footman opened the door.

“Everything seems to be most satisfactory, Mr. Hurd,” she said. “I shall probably be here for several weeks, so come up again if there is anything you want me to sign.”

“I am much obliged, madam,” the agent answered.

He left the place by a side entrance, and rode slowly down the private road, fringed by a magnificent row of elm trees, to the village. The latch of the iron gate at the end of the avenue was stiff, and he failed to open it with his hunting crop at the first attempt. Just as he was preparing to try again, a tall, boyish-looking young man, dressed in sombre black, came swiftly across the road and opened the gate. Mr. Hurd thanked him curtly, and the young man raised his hat.

“You are Mr. Hurd, I believe?” he remarked. “I was going to call upon you this afternoon.”

The little man upon the pony frowned. He had no doubt as to his questioner.

“My name is Hurd, sir,” he answered stiffly. “What can I do for you?”

“You can let me have that barn for my services,” the other answered smiling. “I wrote you about it, you know. My name is Macheson.”

Mr. Hurd’s answer was briefly spoken, and did not invite argument.

“I have mentioned the matter to Miss Thorpe-Hatton, sir. She agrees with me that your proposed ministrations are altogether unneeded in this neighbourhood.”

“You won’t let me use the barn, then?” the young man remarked pleasantly, but with some air of disappointment.

Mr. Hurd gathered up the reins in his hand.

“Certainly not, sir!”

He would have moved on, but his questioner stood in the way. Mr. Hurd looked at him from underneath his shaggy eyebrows. The young man was remarkably young. His smooth, beardless face was the face of a boy. Only the eyes seemed somehow to speak of graver things. They were very bright indeed, and they did not falter.

“Mr. Hurd,” he begged, “do let me ask you one question! Why do you refuse me? What harm can I possibly do by talking to your villagers?”

Mr. Hurd pointed with his whip up and down the country lane.

“This is the village of Thorpe, sir,” he answered. “There are no poor, there is no public-house, and there, within a few hundred yards of the farthest cottage,” he added, pointing to the end of the street, “is the church. You are not needed here. That is the plain truth.”

The young man looked up and down, at the flower-embosomed cottages, with their thatched roofs and trim appearance, at the neatly cut hedges, the well-kept road, the many signs of prosperity. He looked at the little grey church standing in its ancient walled churchyard, where the road divided, a very delightful addition to the picturesque beauty of the place. He looked at all these things and he sighed.

“Mr. Hurd,” he said, “you are a man of experience. You know very well that material and spiritual welfare are sometimes things very far apart.”

Mr. Hurd frowned and turned his pony’s head towards home.

“I know nothing of the sort, sir,” he snapped. “What I do know is that we don’t want any Salvation Army tricks here. You should stay in the cities. They like that sort of thing there.”

“I must come where I am sent, Mr. Hurd,” the young man answered. “I cannot do your people any harm. I only want to deliver my message–and go.”

Mr. Hurd wheeled his pony round.

“I submitted your letter to Miss Thorpe-Hatton,” he said. “She agrees with me that your ministrations are wholly unnecessary here. I wish you good evening!”

The young man caught for a moment at the pony’s rein.

“One moment, sir,” he begged. “You do not object to my appealing to Miss Thorpe-Hatton herself?”

A grim, mirthless smile parted the agent’s lips.

“By no means!” he answered, as he cantered off.

Victor Macheson stood for a moment watching the retreating figure. Then he looked across the park to where, through the great elm avenues, he could catch a glimpse of the house. A humorous smile suddenly brightened his face.

“It’s got to be done!” he said to himself. “Here goes!”

II. THE HUNTER AND HIS QUARRY

The mistress of Thorpe stooped to pat a black Pomeranian which had rushed out to meet her. It was when she indulged in some such movement that one realized more thoroughly the wonderful grace of her slim, supple figure. She who hated all manner of exercise had the ease of carriage and flexibility of one whose life had been spent in athletic pursuits.

“How are you all?” she remarked languidly. “Shocking hostess, am I not?”

A fair-haired little woman turned away from the tea-table. She held a chocolate éclair in one hand, and a cup of Russian tea in the other. Her eyes were very dark, and her hair very yellow–and both were perfectly and unexpectedly natural. Her real name was Lady Margaret Penshore, but she was known to her intimates, and to the mysterious individuals who write under a nom-de-guerre in the society papers, as “Lady Peggy.”

“A little casual perhaps, my dear Wilhelmina,” she remarked. “Comes from your association with Royalty, I suppose. Try one of your own caviare sandwiches, if you want anything to eat. They’re ripping.”

Wilhelmina–she was one of the few women of her set with whose Christian name no one had ever attempted to take any liberties–approached the tea-table and studied its burden. There were a dozen different sorts of sandwiches arranged in the most tempting form, hot-water dishes with delicately browned tea-cakes simmering gently, thick cream in silver jugs, tea and coffee, and in the background old China dishes piled with freshly gathered strawberries and peaches and grapes, on which the bloom still rested. On a smaller table were flasks of liqueurs and a spirit decanter.

“Anyhow,” she remarked, pouring herself out some tea, “I do feed you people well. And as to being casual, I warned you that I never put in an appearance before five.”

A man in the background, long and lantern-faced, a man whose age it would have been as impossible to guess as his character, opened and closed his watch with a clink.

“Twenty minutes past,” he remarked. “To be exact, twenty-two minutes past.”

His hostess turned and regarded him contemplatively.

“How painfully precise!” she remarked. “Somehow, it doesn’t sound convincing, though. Your watch is probably like your morals.”

“What a flattering simile!” he murmured.

“Flattering?”

“It presupposes, at any rate, their existence,” he explained. “It is years since I was reminded of them.”

Wilhelmina seated herself before an open card-table.

“No doubt,” she answered. “You see I knew you when you were a boy. Seriously,” she continued, “I have been engaged with my agent for the last half-hour–a most interesting person, I can assure you. There was an agreement with one Philip Crooks concerning a farm, which he felt compelled to read to me–every word of it! Come along and cut, all of you!”

The fourth person, slim, fair-haired, the typical army officer and country house habitué, came over to the table, followed by the lantern-jawed man. Lady Peggy also turned up a card.

“You and I, Gilbert,” Wilhelmina remarked to the elder man. “Here’s luck to us! What on earth is that you are drinking?”

“Absinthe,” he answered calmly. “I have been trying to persuade Austin to join me, but it seems they don’t drink absinthe in the Army.”

“I should think not, indeed,” his hostess answered. “And you my partner, too! Put the stuff away.”

Gilbert Deyes raised his glass and looked thoughtfully into its opalescent depths.

“Ah! my dear lady,” he said, “you make a great mistake when you number absinthe amongst the ordinary intoxicating beverages. I tell you that the man who invented it was an epicure in sensations and–er–gastronomy. If only De Quincey had realized the possibility of absinthe, he would have given us jewelled prose indeed.”

Wilhelmina yawned.

“Bother De Quincey!” she declared. “It’s your bridge I’m thinking of.”

“Dear lady, you need have no anxiety,” Deyes answered reassuringly. “One does not trifle with one’s livelihood. You will find me capable of the most daring finesses, the most wonderful coups. I shall not revoke, I shall not lead out of the wrong hand. My declarations will be touched with genius. The rubber, in fact, is already won. Vive l’absinthe!”

“The rubber will never be begun if you go on talking nonsense much longer,” Lady Peggy declared, tapping the table impatiently. “I believe I hear the motors outside. We shall have the whole crowd here directly.”

“They won’t find their way here,” their hostess assured them calmly. “My deal, I believe.”

They played the hand in silence. At its conclusion, Wilhelmina leaned back in her chair and listened.

“You were right, Peggy,” she said, “they are all in the hall. I can hear your brother’s voice.”

Lady Peggy nodded.

“Sounds healthy, doesn’t it?”

Gilbert Deyes leaned across to the side table and helped himself to a cigarette.

“Healthy! I call it boisterous,” he declared. “Where have they all been?”

“Motoring somewhere,” Wilhelmina answered. “They none of them have any idea how to pass the time away until the first run.”

“Sport, my dear hostess,” Deyes remarked, “is the one thing which makes life in a country house almost unendurable.”

Wilhelmina shrugged her shoulders.

“That’s all very well, Gilbert,” she said, “but what should we do if we couldn’t get rid of some of these lunatics for at least part of the day?”

“Reasonable, I admit,” Deyes answered, “but think what an intolerable nuisance they make of themselves for the other part. I double No Trumps, Lady Peggy.”

Lady Peggy laid down her cards.

“For goodness’ sake, no more digressions,” she implored. “Remember, please, that I play this game for the peace of mind of my tradespeople! I redouble!”

The hand was played almost in silence. Lady Peggy lost the odd trick and began to add up the score with a gentle sigh.

“After all,” her partner remarked, returning to the subject which they had been discussing, “I don’t think that we could get on very well in this country without sport, of some sort.”

“Of course not,” Deyes answered. “We are all sportsmen, every one of us. We were born so. Only, while some of us are content to wreak our instinct for destruction upon birds and animals, others choose the nobler game–our fellow-creatures! To hunt or trap a human being is finer sport than to shoot a rocketing pheasant, or to come in from hunting with mud all over our clothes, smelling of ploughed fields, steaming in front of the fire, telling lies about our exploits–all undertaken in pursuit of a miserable little animal, which as often as not outwits us, and which, in an ordinary way, we wouldn’t touch with gloves on! What do you say, Lady Peggy?”

“You’re getting beyond me,” she declared. “It sounds a little savage.”

Deyes dealt the cards slowly, talking all the while.

“Sport is savage,” he declared. “No one can deny it. Whether the quarry be human or animal, the end is death. But of all its varieties, give me the hunting of man by man, the brain of the hunter coping with the wiles of the hunted, both human, both of the same order. The game’s even then, for at any moment they may change places–the hunter and his quarry. It’s finer work than slaughtering birds at the coverside. It gives your sex a chance, Lady Peggy.”

“It sounds exciting,” she admitted.

“It is,” he answered.

His hostess looked up at him languidly.

“You speak like one who knows!”

“Why not?” he murmured. “I have been both quarry and hunter. Most of us have more or less! I declare Hearts!”

Again there was an interval of silence, broken only by the stock phrases of the game, and the soft patter of the cards upon the table. Once more the hand was played out and the cards gathered up. Captain Austin delivered his quota to the general discussion.

“After all,” he said, “if it wasn’t for sport, our country houses would be useless.”

“Not at all!” Deyes declared. “Country houses should exist for––”

“For what, Mr. Deyes? Do tell us,” Lady Peggy implored.

“For bridge!” he declared. “For giving weary married people the opportunity for divorce, and as an asylum from one’s creditors.”

Wilhelmina shook her head as she gathered up her cards.

“You are not at your best to-day, Gilbert,” she said. “The allusion to creditors is prehistoric! No one has them nowadays. Society is such a hop-scotch affair that our coffers are never empty.”

“What a Utopian sentiment!” Lady Peggy murmured.

“We can’t agree, can we?” Deyes whispered in her ear.

“You! Why they say that you are worth a million,” she protested.

“If I am I remain poor, for I cannot spend it,” he declared.

“Why not?” his hostess asked him from across the table.

“Because,” he answered, “I am cursed with a single vice, trailing its way through a labyrinth of virtues. I am a miser!”

Lady Peggy laughed incredulously.

“Rubbish!” she exclaimed.

“Dear lady, it is nothing of the sort,” he answered, shaking his head sadly. “I have felt it growing upon me for years. Besides, it is hereditary. My mother opened a post-office savings bank account for me. At an early age I engineered a corner in marbles and sold out at a huge profit. I am like the starving dyspeptic at the rich man’s feast.”

Captain Austin intervened.

“I declare Diamonds,” he announced, and the hand proceeded.

Wilhelmina leaned back in her chair as the last trick fell. Her eyes were turned towards the window. She could just see the avenue of elms down which her agent had ridden a short while since. Deyes, through half closed eyes, watched her with some curiosity.

“If one dared offer a trifling coin of the realm––” he murmured.

“I was thinking of your theory,” she interrupted. “According to you, I suppose the whole world is made up of hunters and their quarry. Can you tell, I wonder, by looking at people, to which order they belong?”

“It is easy,” he answered. “Yet you must remember we are continually changing places. The man who cracks the whip to-day is the hunted beast to-morrow. The woman who mocks at her lover this afternoon is often the slave-bearer when dusk falls. Swift changes like this are like rain upon the earth. They keep us, at any rate, out of the asylums.”

Wilhelmina was still looking out of the window. Up the great avenue, in and out amongst the tree trunks, but moving always with swift buoyant footsteps towards the house, came a slim, dark figure, soberly dressed in ill-fitting clothes. He walked with the swing of early manhood, his head was thrown back, and he carried his hat in his hand. She leaned forward to watch him more closely–he seemed to have associated himself in some mysterious manner with the mocking words of Gilbert Deyes. Half maliciously, she drew his attention to the swiftly approaching figure.

“Come, my friend of theories,” she said mockingly. “There is a stranger there, the young man who walks so swiftly. To which of your two orders does he belong?”

Deyes looked out of the window–a brief, careless glance.

“To neither,” he answered. “His time has not come yet. But he has the makings of both.”

III. FIRST BLOOD

A footman entered the room a few minutes later, and obedient, without a doubt, to some previously given command, waited behind his mistress’ chair until a hand had been played. When it was over, she spoke to him without turning her head.

“What is it, Perkins?” she asked.

He bent forward respectfully.

“There is a young gentleman here, madam, who wishes to see you most particularly. He has no card, but he said that his name would not be known to you.”

“Tell him that I am engaged,” Wilhelmina said. “He must give you his name, and tell you what business he has come upon.”

“Very good, madam!” the man answered, and withdrew.

He was back again before the next hand had been played. Once more he stood waiting in respectful silence.

“Well?” his mistress asked.

“His name, madam, is Mr. Victor Macheson. He said that he would wait as long as you liked, but he preferred telling you his business himself.”

“I fancy that I know it,” Wilhelmina answered. “You can show him in here.”

“Is it the young man, I wonder,” Lady Peggy remarked, “who came up the avenue as though he were walking on air?”

“Doubtless,” Wilhelmina answered. “He is some sort of a missionary. I had him shown in here because I thought his coming at all an impertinence, and I want to make him understand it. You will probably find him amusing, Mr. Deyes.”

Gilbert Deyes shook his head quietly.

“There was a time,” he murmured, “when the very word missionary was a finger-post to the ridiculous. The comic papers rob us, however, of our elementary sources of humour.”

They all looked curiously towards the door as he entered, all except Wilhelmina, who was the last to turn her head, and found him hesitating in some embarrassment as to whom to address. He was somewhat above medium height, fair, with a mass of wind-tossed hair, and had the smooth face of a boy. His eyes were his most noticeable feature. They were very bright and very restless. Lady Peggy called them afterwards uncomfortable eyes, and the others, without any explanation, understood what she meant.

“I am Miss Thorpe-Hatton,” Wilhelmina said calmly. “I am told that you wished to see me.”

She turned only her head towards him. Her words were cold and unwelcoming. She saw that he was nervous and she had no pity. It was unworthy of her. She knew that. Her eyes questioned him calmly. Sitting there in her light muslin dress, with her deep-brown hair arranged in the Madonna-like fashion, which chanced to be the caprice of the moment, she herself–one of London’s most beautiful women–seemed little more than a girl.

“I beg your pardon,” he began hurriedly. “I understood–I expected––”

“Well?”

The monosyllable was like a drop of ice. A faint spot of colour burned in his cheeks. He understood now that for some reason this woman was inimical to him. The knowledge seemed to have a bracing effect. His eyes flashed with a sudden fire which gave force to his face.

“I expected,” he continued with more assurance, “to have found Miss Thorpe-Hatton an older lady.”

She said nothing. Only her eyebrows were very slightly raised. She seemed to be asking him silently what possible concern the age of the lady of Thorpe-Hatton could be to him. He was to understand that his remark was almost an impertinence.

“I wished,” he said, “to hold a service in Thorpe on Sunday afternoon, and also one during the week, and I wrote to your agent asking for the loan of a barn, which is generally, I believe, used for any gathering of the villagers. Mr. Hurd found himself unable to grant my request. I have ventured to appeal to you.”

“Mr. Hurd,” she said calmly, “decided, in my opinion, quite rightly. I do not see what possible need my villagers can have of further religious services than the Church affords them.”

“Madam,” he answered, “I have not a word to say against your parish church, or against your excellent vicar. Yet I believe, and the body to which I am attached believes, that change is stimulating. We believe that the great truths of life cannot be presented to our fellow-creatures too often, or in too many different ways.”

“And what,” she asked, with a faint curl of her beautiful lips, “do you consider the great truths of life?”

“Madam,” he answered, with slightly reddening cheeks, “they vary for every one of us, according to our capacity and our circumstances. What they may mean,” he added, after a moment’s hesitation, “to people of your social order, I do not know. It has not come within the orbit of my experience. It was your villagers to whom I was proposing to talk.”

There was a moment’s silence. Gilbert Deyes and Lady Peggy exchanged swift glances of amused understanding. Wilhelmina bit her lip, but she betrayed no other sign of annoyance.

“To what religious body do you belong?” she asked.

“My friends,” he answered, “and I, are attached to none of the recognized denominations. Our only object is to try to keep alight in our fellow-creatures the flame of spirituality. We want to help them–not to forget.”

“There is no name by which you call yourselves?” she asked.

“None,” he answered.

“And your headquarters are where?” she asked.

“In Gloucestershire,” he answered–“so far as we can be said to have any headquarters at all.”

“You have no churches then?” she asked.

“Any building,” he answered, “where the people are to whom we desire to speak, is our church. We look upon ourselves as missioners only.”

“I am afraid,” Wilhelmina said quietly, “that I am only wasting your time in asking these questions. Still, I should like to know what induced you to choose my village as an appropriate sphere for your labours.”

“We each took a county,” he answered. “Leicestershire fell to my lot. I selected Thorpe to begin with, because I have heard it spoken of as a model village.”

Wilhelmina’s forehead was gently wrinkled.

“I am afraid,” she said, “that I am a somewhat dense person. Your reason seems to me scarcely an adequate one.”

“Our belief is,” he declared, “that where material prosperity is assured, especially amongst this class of people, the instincts towards spirituality are weakened.”

“My people all attend church; we have no public-house; there are never any scandals,” she said.

“All these things,” he admitted, “are excellent. But they do not help you to see into the lives of these people. Church-going may become a habit, a respectable and praiseworthy thing–and a thing expected of them. Morality, too, may become a custom–until temptation comes. One must ask oneself what is the force which prompts these people to direct their lives in so praiseworthy a manner.”

“You forget,” she remarked, “that these are simple folk. Their religion with them is simply a matter of right or wrong. They need no further instruction in this.”

“Madam,” he said, “so long as they are living here, that may be so. Frankly, I do not consider it sufficient that their lives are seemly, so long as they live in the shadow of your patronage. What happens to those who pass outside its influence is another matter.”

“What do you know about that?” she asked coldly.

“What I do know about it,” he answered, “decided me to come to Thorpe.”